(upbeat music) You're listening to Journey by Faith, the official podcast of Faith Bible College in Norfolk, Virginia. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Here we go. (upbeat music) Welcome back everyone to the Faith Bible College podcast. It has been a while, it's been a busy summer. If you have ever been a teacher or had students, you know summer just throws you off, no matter if you have a job or not. We have been hard at work, of course, but things are just different in the summer in academics. You kind of mentally need some time off to focus on the upcoming year. So yeah, we've been hard at work, of course, but we've also been relaxing a little bit. - Yeah. - Do you do anything fun, Dr. Newman this summer? - Oh yeah, we took a couple weeks and went and visited some family. So it was nice and did some day trips around Hampton Roads as well. - Oh, good. - Yeah, I actually started my EDD program at Southern. So I spent a week in Louisville, Kentucky at its Southern Seminary and it was back for a week and then went to the beach. So just between doing all that work and being on vacation and stuff, it's been a nice break from things, but we are getting back into it. The fall semester is starting soon. We'll talk about that in just a little bit, but we have lots of exciting things coming up. The first thing we want to let our listeners know about is that we are starting something new with the podcast and we are looking for sponsors and different people who would like us to like to support our podcast ministry. And our first sponsor is a great business, one that I run myself with my son who's here listening today. Hey, Micah, he's eight. He helps us out and my wife is actually the business owner of that that is man, got a coffee and tea. Man got a coffee and tea is gonna be our first podcast sponsor for this week's episode. And we just want you guys to know about what we do and we are at farmers markets at Hilton Village. Sometimes at Buckrow Beach, if you're on the peninsula, you can catch us there. We do some other events occasionally and things like that, but we got some great locally roasted coffee and we love to serve our community. So check our website, that's www.mangottacoffee.com. That's M-A-N-G-A-T-A, coffee.com. You can see our schedule and where we'll be and we would love to serve you coffee sometime. - It is very good, I can attest to that. - Yeah, Dr. Newman's been several times. So check us out and we do thank myself. It's kind of confusing, but thank you, man, got a coffee for sponsoring today's episode. - Yes, thank you. - All right, the next thing we wanna tell you about before we get back into Genesis is that our fall semester is coming up. We're very excited about our fall semester. Our classes are what we are all about. That is our, just, what we love to do is teach the Bible. We are Faith Bible College, unapologetically, a Bible college, that's what we teach. We have other classes that may not directly be Bible, but they all talk about the Bible. - They all deal with ministry. - Everything's about ministry, exactly. So everything we do is focused on the Bible. So we have some great in-person classes. Chaplain Dale Parker is teaching contemporary theology class, this is one that a lot of students were interested in taking and he put it together very thankful for Dale and everything that he is doing. For that, we have evangelism and discipleship being taught by Reverend Burt Kirk, and then we have New Testament and Old Testament history and those are coming up as well. Dr. Newman's gonna teach those, and I may help you out if you need 'em, just let me know. We'll talk about that, we'll see what we can do. Dr. Hap, who just this week had his 96th birthday, is that right? - That is correct. - Dr. Hap's brothers, what a man of God. He is teaching an intimacy with God class this semester. We have spiritual transformation. Chaplain Parker is gonna teach that one as well. We have several online classes. The one that I will mention is I'll be teaching a class on the book of Genesis, which we'll have a lot of, lot of the similar content, what we're talking about here, but really just taking a look at things that we can study in Genesis and doing some good work on the academic side of things with the book of Genesis, which I'm very excited about as well. Again, lots of others, I think accounting is happening this. - Accounting is? - Yep. - This semester, so that's-- - And let me mention a new venture that we're starting this fall. We are starting with concentrations. - Yes, I'm very excited about that. - Our first one is going to be an urban ministry concentration. Now, what that means is it'll be made up of six workshops or classes. Each workshop will run for seven weeks a piece. And so in one year's time, two classes in the fall, one over the winter, two in the spring, one over the summer, you can earn a concentration in how to do urban ministry better. Pastor Charles Shannon is going to be leading and directing that. He's got a lot of experience. He's the pastor of Mission Church in downtown Norfolk. So if you're interested, it's a great deal. $1,500 for the entire concentration and you can go through it in person or live stream. So for any of these, check out the college website, faithbiblecollege.com. You can register there and we're looking forward to an exciting and dynamic semester of and seeing what God's going to do. - Absolutely. One of the things I'm excited about for this is I thought when we have a concentration, we really need people who are champions, I would say, of that concentration. So we've got a great opportunity here with this concentration. I'm really excited about what we're doing with these certificates. We're going to be very effective and practical. It's all about practicality. - Yes. - We were about Bible or about ministry. We're here to equip people to do the work of the ministry. - Right. - So this is a great way to do that if you're interested. So again, check out our website. We'll be sending out more information about that soon. - All right. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) All right. We'll let us jump back into Genesis. We actually recorded a couple episodes that had some technical problems and I was, I'm going to be honest, there was a little frustrating. We did a lot of work recording those and we, and then it just didn't work. But, you know, prayed about it and God said, "Hey, it's okay. You can take a break." And I said, "Okay." We will trust him for that. And I'm gonna hope that over the last several weeks, God gave us some new insight on Genesis. That's gonna be even better than the ones we did before. So we are picking up on Genesis chapter seven, verse 17. This is where Noah is already on the ark. The Lord has shut him in to the ark. And what it says starting in verse 17 is that the flood continued 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark and rose it high above the earth. All right, so we have 40 days of rain. - Yes. And as we talked about before, it's been a while. So I'll just refresh our memories. We hold to the belief of the canopy theory. And when that canopy broke up, it produced enough rain to flood the earth. And we also saw that water came from beneath the earth as well. And so enough water that the ark, as it says, is raised up. And we're told that it not only does it raise up above the earth, but verse 18, the waters prevailed and increased greatly. And the ark floated on the face of the waters and the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. - Wow. - And we're gonna be told in the next verse that the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them 15 qubits, which is about 20 feet. So again, evidence for a universal flood, because, you know, where else is the water going to go? You're not going to have a wall of water. So 20 feet above the highest mountain, that's pretty incredible. - It's good evidence against the idea that this was just a localized flood to this region. - Yes. And it also provides explanation as to why we have found fossils on sea fossils on top of mountains. Obviously, the fish didn't climb up there, but because of the flood, they were deposited in top of the mountains. And as we'll see, some of these mountains were even produced as a result of the flood. - Right, yep. - So as the water pushed up from underneath the land, that brought about mountains. And, you know, as I've said before, God gave me the blessing of living in Alaska for a number of years. And seeing the mountains there on a daily basis and walking on some of them and thinking that some of them were formed as a result of Noah's flood. And, you know, the beauty that came from this cataclysm, this disaster. Once again, it's just a reminder that God can do that. And he often does do that in everything, as he says in Romans eight, that all things work together for good. - Right. - So he brings beauty from ashes. - Absolutely. - Right, you know, I just, I had a conversation recently with a friend whose father had unexpectedly passed away. And we just talked about how, you know, I caught him up and I said, you know, some people are gonna say everything happens for a reason. And the reason is simply that the world's broken, right? You know, what God does do is he takes, like you said, he makes beauty from ashes. He brings good from bad. That's what he does. - Yeah. - Sometimes there's not a reason. Well, the good, he did this for this reason. No, the reason is just that the world's broken. That's the reason. - Right, sin has devastating effects, but God can take that devastation and still make beauty out of it. - Exactly, yes. He redeems all things. - Yes. - Right, so this is what we see here, yes. So you, I think you read up through verse 20. - Yes. - I'll pick us up in verse 21. An all flesh died that moved on the earth. Birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth and all mankind. Everything on the dry land and whose nostrils was the breath of life died. - Yes. It's hard for us to even comprehend the amount of death that took place here. But again, to me, this is beautiful, not death. But because my mind begins to think of, well, where did all the dead bodies go? Not only mankind, which could have been in the billions as far as population, but all of the animals of the earth. What happened to that? - Well, God kind of buried them himself. They weren't just left out to rot on the ground. And so, God used that. And here we are here in Hampton Roads. And for me, one of the headaches is going over the HRBT every day. - Oh man, yep. And the reason is because they got a lot of construction going on there. I just read recently that as a matter of that construction and digging out new tunnels, they actually found mastodon bones. So, which was an ancient ancestor of the elephant. - Right. - So dinosaur bones found right here in Hampton Roads. And who knows how long they've been under there, but probably as a result of the flood. - Could be, yeah. Absolutely. It's very interesting, right? All these things that they discover all the time. Like we've said before, science always catches up with scripture, always. Kind of continuing the thought from that, everything on the dry land and whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals, creeping things and birds of the heavens. And they were blotted out from the earth only. Noah was left and those who are with him in the ark, and the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. - Yeah. So, as much as it's amazing to see God taking care of the dead bodies, there is still the fact of all this death. - Right. - As a result of man's sin. God is not an angry God. God is a God of love, but he's also a God of justice. - Right. - And he must deal with sin. And we're told earlier, as we saw in chapter six, that every thought of every man was only evil all the time. - Right. - The greatness of man's sin. And I think we need to recognize here just for a moment that yeah, not only is this as a result of man's sin and the justice of God, but it is also the mercy of God that he's not doing this again. - Right. - Because we've got to recognize man is no better today than what they were back then. - Yeah, that's right, that's exactly right. The fact that God promised to never destroy the world with flood again is miraculous and is a sign of his mercy, right? - Amen. - So we then get to chapter eight where it's one of my favorite phrases in the whole Bible, but God, that's a great phrase. But God remembered Noah and all the beasts of and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. So again, this is the mercy of God. Okay, God is just, but he remembers Noah. He remembers those who he chose to save. - Yeah, and the Hebrew word here is actually very interesting because when we look at this and we say, okay, God remembered. And some might say, well, did he forget about Noah? No, and typically, for us remembering is, it's active in our brain, but it's not active in anything else. But for God, when this word is used, the remembrance brings action. - Right. - So what we're told here is not only does God think about Noah, he's never stopped thinking about him, but now it's time to fix things, if you will. God is going to begin to act to draw this catastrophe to an end. - Right. So that's what's going on here. That's exactly right. We are seeing God's redemption here from the justice he had to enact on the earth, that through his goodness and justice, this was what he must do, but through his mercy and grace, he is remembered, like you said, and is going to act on man's behalf. And again, it really is. It does say no, it's a righteous man, but it's because of his mercy, right? That's what it's based in. So then it says, what does God do? It says God made a wind to blow over the earth. Now I've asked, we've mentioned this word wind, the word wind, spirit, breath, all of that are the same word in Hebrew. So what kind of connection should we think of here? And we see wind that God made a wind blow over the earth. - Well, good point. It's the Hebrew word ruach. - Right. - And it can be translated spirit, wind, breath, and the ESV, our translation here translates it wind, which gives the impression that it's a natural phenomenon. If you will, but everything natural, has supernatural behind it. - That's right. - Because our God is sovereign and in control. So whether this is the actual breath of God, or God just using wind, he is using that wind to cause the waters to subside. You know, when I was in college, I played college baseball. And obviously there were days that we would have rain and we say, okay, well, we're gonna get this game in. And one of the things we look for was, was it windy? And if it was windy after the rain, then we knew we're probably going to play because the wind would dry up the field and we could get out there and play. If there was no wind, well, you know, depending on how bad the rain had been, we might not be playing that day. So wind has a way of doing that. And again, we noticed the waters subsided. And, you know, let me just mention here, you know, people are gonna say, okay, you got all this water that's flowing and covering the entire earth 20 feet above the mountains. Where did it all go? - Right. - Well, not only did God cause the mountains to be formed, but valleys as well. - Yep. - And cangens. I believe I'm convinced that the Grand Canyon is as a result of the flood of Noah. - Yep. - And, you know, I heard somebody once say, well, you know, if you believe that the flood narrative is true, where all the rest of the Grand Canyons. And the fact is there are many of them, most of them under the ocean. - Right. - And so the oceans became deeper. Not only that, but with the removal of the canopy, weather patterns change. Now it gets colder. Actually, what science refers to as the ice age comes. And so much of the water would form into the polar ice caps and glaciers. And again, you know, I can remember being in Alaska hiking on the glacier. And, you know, looking down the crevices and just thinking, you know, is this ice leftover from Noah's flood? And, you know, how exciting that was to know that, well, yeah, the greatest potential is much of that ice. Yeah, was water from the flood. - Right, that's really interesting. Well, yeah. So to think, yeah, right. To think where it came from, you know, I think you've mentioned before that it may not have rained before. - Right. - Noah's flood because of the canopy and the canopy theory and all of that. So, you know, that rained a lot of that water is probably, you know, in the, you know, in the sky, the form of clouds, it's condensed. It's part of the water cycle, right? There's lots of places this could be, right. Either way, you know, I think we can't discount the fact that God could miraculously do whatever he wants. - Right. - Well, how do you explain this? Sometimes we just can't. - Right. - Sometimes the answer is, well, God did it and we just trust that he did it. - Yeah. - Right, you know, there are, and one of the reasons that I believe in this faith so strongly is that I see evidence of it. But sometimes the evidence is that God just did it and we don't know how. - That's right. - Right, so we can't, we can't explain everything. I think we can try and get very close. And I think that is part of the endeavor of what we should do, is to seek to know God in his fullness in the ways that he's revealed himself and think about these things. But there is, I think, a spiritual discipline of looking and saying, God did this and I trust him that he did it. - That's right. - So, you know, if there's ever a place where we can't fully explain something, that's okay, right? We can say God did this and we don't know how but we know he did. So, the balance there, I think, is difficult to explain and to express but there truly is a sense of the wonder. You know, if we could explain everything about God, then he would not be who he says he is. - That's right. - So, let's not discount through all of these excellent pieces of evidence that we have for the flood. Let's not discount that God is mysterious and God is far beyond what we can comprehend and that he can do whatever he wants. - Amen. - So, two sides of the same coin, I think, in some ways. So, as we see here in chapter eight, it says that I think we're on verse two, "The fountains of the deep and the windows "of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens "was restrained and the waters receded "from the earth continually. "At the end of 150 days, the waters had abated "and in the seventh month on the 17th day of the month, "the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, "so we have a resting place now for Noah's ark." - Yes. - And something interesting here, we notice, God gives us a fairly specific site for the final resting place of the ark on Mount Ararat. And Ararat literally means mount of descent, mount of descent. Now, you think about that, that's really kind of a strange name. - Right. - Because, in order to descend, you must first ascend. But this is a mountain that is known for the descent, becoming down of Noah, his family, and the animals. Not climbing up, but coming down because they got there on the ark. And then they had to come down. And so, the water does recede quite considerably, and the ark rests up on top of a mountain. Now, let's just say, over the years, there's been many people that have testified that they've seen the ark, or they've discovered the ark. - Right. - And we know that Ararat is in present day Turkey, and the Turkish government has forbidden any kind of expeditions there. So, nobody's allowed to go there anymore. And my response is, hey, I don't need to see the ark. - Yeah, right. - To believe that this is true. - Exactly. - God said it, and I believe the Bible is inspired and authoritative, and that this did take place. - Absolutely, yeah. - So, whether we actually find the ark or not, as far as I've concerned, who cares? - Yep. - Sure. - It happened, and there's enough evidence outside of the actual physical ark to prove that the Bible in this story is absolutely true. - Absolutely. - I agree. That is, without a doubt, we can trust in the words of the Bible, we don't need, like you said, we don't need outside evidence. But we have plenty of it. - Yeah. - That's what's great, not only, we don't need it, but we have a lot of it. - We do. - And if we're missing one piece or not short, that, like you said, it does not matter in the grand scheme of things, because what is primary is not the evidence, what's primary is God's words. - Right. And let me just say that, you know, for those who say, well, why didn't God provide more evidence? You know, the fact of the matter is, is that I've met a lot of people in my life who, when confronted with evidence of God's truth, still choose not to believe. - Right. - And so, I'm convinced that it's not a problem of I can't believe, but I won't believe. - Right. - Because if I have to accept the Bible as being true, then I have to accept what it tells me about God, and that is that God is sovereign and superior, and I need to be submissive and obedient to Him, and in a world where people just want to live their own life and do it their way, people don't want to bow the knee to God. - That's right. - And so, it comes down to, I don't want to believe because of what that means my life should be. - Right. - And, you know, most of our listeners here probably know of people, friends and family, maybe coworkers that are the same way. You've shared the gospel with them, and you've provided evidence, and they're, well, I just can't believe that, give me more evidence. - Right. - You know, God could turn the sky from blue to red, and it wouldn't matter. Some people are still never going to believe. - It's true, yeah, that's exactly right. I was trying to look for it, 'cause that reminded me of something I saw online, I'm not gonna be able to find it right now, so I'm gonna just have to paraphrase what I remember it said. But it was essentially somebody who used to be a, used to be a non-believer, was non-religious, and he would look at the people who were anti-religion, he would call them evil. He said evil, like, I didn't believe in God. Evil believes in God and fights against him. - Right. - That brought me back to religion. Like, evil doesn't disbelieve in God, they believe in him, and they reject him outright. - Right, so I think you're exactly right. I will try and find that quote, but I thought that was a really interesting thought, just this testimony of somebody who just, yeah, it wasn't, again, I wouldn't say probably not, by his admission, maybe not militant against God, but just simply didn't believe. But looked around to the evidence of people who said, who so strongly rejected God, that he said, well, that brought me back. That made me believe in God again. - Well, let me just throw this out there. We don't have time to get into it, especially right now, as we're getting near the end. But, you know, a lot of people try to explain the way the existence of God because of the existence of evil. - Right. - My proclamation is that the existence of evil is proof of the existence of God. - Right. - Now, maybe someday we'll have the opportunity to take a broadcast and to dig down deep into that. But, you know, just let your mind ponder on that for a while. And say, how does evil prove that God exists? And if you think it through logically, you'll see that it really does. The opposite is not true. Evil does not disprove God. It proves that there is a sovereign, holy, loving God. - Absolutely, yes. When I explain this in my theology class I teach here at Hampton Christian. When we talk about, you know, did God create evil or not? I go over to the light switch and I turn off the light and I say, did I just create dark? No, I didn't. I removed the light. - Right. - Right, so I agree with that completely, where the absence of good is what evil is. The absence of good. It's not something to be created, right? So yeah, without a doubt. Like you said, not a lot of time to get into, you know, problem of evil right now as much as I would love that. But we will discuss that another time probably. But like you said, for now, we are nearing the end of our time for today's podcast. I'll just end with verse five because, well, it's the end of a paragraph in the ESV. So that just makes sense in my brain. And it says in the waters continued to abate until the 10th month, in the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains, we're seeing. So again, we're seeing the waters being removed, abating as it says, and God is continuing to remember Noah and bring about redemption from this flood. - Yeah, and I'm sure as far as Noah's perspective is concerned, not quite fast enough. - Sure. - But, you know, we always tend to be impatient and we need to recognize that God's timing is perfect. And we'll see that as we move on here in chapter eight and through the remainder of Genesis. - Yes, all right. Well, Dr. Newman, thank you again for joining me. We're so glad to be back. And we look forward to continuing to go through Genesis with you. - Amen. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
